SALON

Thursday, Dec 14, 2006 12:14 AM UTC

Male circumcision cuts HIV transmission

Should adult men in areas rife with unprotected sex and AIDS be encouraged to go under the knife?

By

Topics: Broadsheet, Love and Sex,

AIDS researchers in Africa have long observed that HIV spreads most quickly in areas where male circumcision is not common practice. Now, trials conducted by the National Institutes of Health in Uganda and Kenya confirm that circumcision can dramatically reduce a man’s chance of contracting HIV through heterosexual sex. The trials followed nearly 8,000 men, half of whom underwent voluntary circumcision. Researchers were so floored by the preliminary results — respectively, the circumcized Ugandan and Kenyan men were 53 and 48 percent less likely to become infected — that they felt a moral obligation to put a halt to the study.

Responding to NIH’s announcement of the findings today, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, suggested that male circumcision could have far-reaching effects on the disease’s spread: “While the initial benefit will be fewer HIV infections in men, ultimately adult male circumcision could lead to fewer infections in women in those areas of the world where HIV is spread primarily through heterosexual intercourse.” A previous study estimated that roughly 6 million HIV infections could be prevented in sub-Saharan Africa through male circumcision, according to the BBC.

So the conundrum on everyone’s minds is: Should circumcision be encouraged in areas where unsafe sex and HIV run rampant? Some would see it as an ethical no-brainer. It may be that, culturally, widespread circumcision is more easily adopted in sub-Saharan Africa than sweeping safe-sex practices. There’s also an argument for spreading the word about the newfound benefits of circumcision in the name of comprehensive and honest sex ed.

But there are also arguments against it. For one, there’s the risk that such a push would undercut safe-sex campaigns already scaling a cultural Everest. Should humanitarian efforts really be diverted to encouraging circumcision among African men when they might otherwise bolster safe-sex campaigns already under way? As Tom Elkins, senior policy officer at the National AIDS Trust, told the BBC: “There is a real danger in sending out a message that circumcision can protect against HIV. This is not the case and could lead to an increase in unprotected sex,” he said. “There is still a long way to go in providing comprehensive prevention programs in many countries, and resources should go into normalizing the use of condoms, which are the most effective method currently available for preventing HIV.”

And, of course, circumcision is a controversial topic — almost any time we mention the practice, furious debates erupt over circumcision’s cultural history and how it differs, if at all, from female genital mutilation. From our perspective, the practices have very distinct religious, medical and cultural histories. Male circumcision typically does not destroy sexual function — it isn’t designed to stamp out a man’s sexual pleasure or identity. The same cannot be said for female circumcision, which, more often than not, is more accurately described as mutilation. And when it comes to the HIV-prevention debate, there’s a dramatic difference between forcefully circumcising a young girl — permanently flipping off the switch on her sexual self — and offering an adult man the option to be circumcised. All that being said, both are surgical procedures that alter genitalia; plenty of people feel very strongly that male circumcision is an archaic practice and should be phased out; and the subject remains ripe for heated discussion.

Still, in light of this recent finding, advocating male circumcision in general seems different from advocating for the practice in a region rife with unsafe sex and AIDS. Even if we’re able to set aside cultural debates about circumcision, though, we’ll still be grappling with whether advocating for male circumcision in Africa is simply realistic broadening of the scope of the fight against AIDS or a dangerous endorsement of the idea that safe sex is as easy as a one-time snip.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 54 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations